The existence of multiple units of Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) at the ports is creating bureaucratic bottlenecks leading to delays in the business of clearing imported cargoes, BusinessDay has learnt.
A visit to the Apapa and Tin-Can Island Ports in Lagos shows that Customs has about seven different units at the ports. These include Enforcement, Valuation, Customs Intelligent Unit (CIU), Residence, Taskforce, Strike Force and Abuja Alert. There is also the Federal Operations Unit that mounts checkpoint right at the port gate. These Customs units are involved in cargo clearance and importers and their agents must seek approval of their documentation from these units before the release of their cargoes.
The implication of this is that Nigeria has continued to fail in meeting the 48-hour cargo clearance target. Cargo dwells for a minimum of 20 days in the nation’s seaports with importers paying dearly as demurrage and storage charges to shipping companies and terminal operators.
Tony Anakebe, managing director, Gold Link Investment Ltd, a Lagos-based clearing and forwarding company, said the clearing procedure has become very tough with Customs having about eight different units that must authorise the release of consignment. This, he said, was aside from other government agencies that must also authorise the cargo release before the importer would be allowed to take delivery of his consignment.
In the circumstance, Anakebe said, it takes a minimum of three weeks (21 days) to clear cargoes with genuine documents out from the ports due to the delays that come with passing the documents to multiple units of Customs and other agencies at ports.
“As far as the management of Customs continues to multiply the units of officers from the same agency, we will only continue to breed corruption in the ports. Imagine going through eight different Customs units before clearing one container!” Anakebe said.
“Government needs to make it easier for Nigerians to take delivery of their consignments within 48 hours rather than enrich shipping companies through demurrage accumulated from time wasted as a result of delays caused by bureaucratic bottlenecks,” he said.
Customs management had recently made move to deploy another taskforce to the ports, which would have meant adding to the number of units, but the move was resisted by Licensed Customs Agents.
Emma Nwabunwanne, a Lagos-based importer, said it was worrisome that after Customs examination inside the port, the cargo owner would go outside the port gate to start all over at the checkpoints mounted by Customs Strike Force and FOU officers.
In addition, he regretted that Nigeria Customs still does 100 percent physical examination, meaning that scanning machines have either not been functional or not working at optimal capacity.
“For instance, if a terminal like TICT has 500 containers for examination, all would be inspected physically and the question is, how long will it take Customs officers to handle that?” he said.
Nigeria’s cargo inspection system still lags behind peers. Giving an insight into the poor state of cargo inspection at the ports, Nwabunwanne said that after examination, the inspection report is sent to an assistant controller for release. The report is then taken to a deputy controller.
“In Dubai, agents (Customs brokers) have no business meeting face-to-face with Customs. The agent pays the duty, scans the document to Customs and within two to three hours, the agents would pick the cargo. They pay attention to payment of correct duty and bringing of the right cargo while the rest of the authorities do their jobs online,” he said.
He noted that scanners made things easier for Nigerian importers five years ago, but Nigeria’s import processing system seems to have gone back to the dark ages.
“There is no seaport in the world, including in our neighbouring countries of Togo and Benin, that is not making use of scanning machine. Technology has taken over even in management of the ports such that importers get to the port and see when the consignment is being discharged, which is usually accurate, but in Nigeria, it is different,” he said.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
